October 30th, 2010, 3:26 pm by GEORGE A. PAUL, FOR THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Sometimes a slip of the tongue can speak volumes.

Halfway through Stone Temple Pilots' powerful show Friday night at Nokia Theatre, singer Scott Weiland looked down at the setlist and announced they were going to play a song by a “big English rock band.” But he jumped the gun and corrected himself: “I meant a big American rock band -- us.”

During the '90s, of course, STP was one of the biggest grunge groups around. A dominant force on alternative and album-oriented rock radio here, their first two albums, Core (1992) and Purple (1994), sold a combined 15 million copies, while the next two discs (1996's Tiny Music ... Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop and 1999's No. 4) also went platinum. Yet Weiland's persistent drug and alcohol problems led to various stints in jail and rehab and elevated tensions among members (guitarist Dean DeLeo faced substance abuse to a lesser extent). STP split up in 2003.

Two years ago the quartet reconvened for a highly successful tour that included a debut at the Hollywood Bowl. An impressive self-titled effort, their first work in nearly a decade, came out in spring and finds the musicians expanding upon their usual crunchy rock sound with excursions into glam, psychedelia and power pop.

STP's 90-minute, 18-song concert in Los Angeles touched upon most of the '90s hits and a smattering from Stone Temple Pilots (only four of its dozen cuts). With his trademark megaphone at the ready, Weiland and the guys opened with a menacing “Crackerman,” while a giant LED screen displayed muted images (it was later put to better use flashing lyrics). Despite some recent controversy, where Weiland admitted to drinking again at a Houston show and subsequently rescheduled concert dates, the frontman looked and sounded just fine at Nokia.

It's a week of extra dates and encore visits, with Brandon Flowers tacking on a night at the Fox Theater in Pomona, on Nov. 9, to his coming Southern California swing, while Mike Patton and the revived '90s band Faith No More have added a second show, on Dec. 1, to its stand at the Hollywood Palladium, now that the Nov. 30 show has sold out.

Tickets for Flowers are $27.50 in advance, $30 day of show. Travis frontman Fran Healy has been added as opener on that tour. Tickets for the FNM gig, on the other hand, are $63.45, including fees. Both shows go on sale Friday at 10 a.m.

Adam Lambert is making his way back to Los Angeles again, and though I'm sure he easily could sell out the 7,100-capacity Nokia Theatre, he's instead opting to play the considerably smaller L.A. Live venue Club Nokia on Dec. 16. Tickets, $35-$49.50, are on sale Friday at 10 a.m.

Also at that hotspot and on sale at that time: Kelis, Nov. 19, $28.50-$35 ... and OK Go, Nov. 27, $22.50 in advance, $25 day of show. On sale Saturday at 10 a.m.: R&B mainstays K-Ci & JoJo with Dru Hill, Nov. 11, $19.50-$50.

To make up for what she considers a poor performance at the Greek Theatre last month (she was getting over the flu, but our David Hall thought it was a valiant appearance all the same), Sheryl Crow will play a free show at the Pantages Theatre on Nov. 16. "My fans deserve better," she said in a statement, "so I am playing a special show just for them and to spread awareness about the fight against breast cancer."

Those of us who survived the plastic, DayGlo '80s thanks in large part to earnest bands who made music that mattered -- U2 and R.E.M. probably the most famous, the Alarm perhaps the most underrated -- may recall the Call, a very noteworthy band out of Santa Cruz that gained some MTV and college-radio attention for its politically-charged yet infectious 1983 single "The Walls Came Down." It was sung with seething conviction by the group's bassist and frontman, Michael Been, who died of a heart attack Thursday in Belgium, at 60.

"I don't think there are any Russians," Been concluded in that tune, "and there ain't no Yanks / Just corporate criminals / Playin' with tanks." It's one of those songs that unfortunately has only gained resonance with age.

The piece, one of several Call cuts that featured Band keysman Garth Hudson (you can notice him in the clip here), came from Modern Romans, a year after the Call issued its self-titled debut and attracted the attention of Peter Gabriel, who took them on the road as opening act for his Security tour, when "Shock the Monkey" was all the rage. Though delayed, the outfit's arguably best album -- Reconciled, led by "Everywhere I Go," a gripping, chanted anthem (about a lost love? or God?) that can leave you feeling slightly haunted (see the clip above) -- finally arrived in 1986 from Elektra Records ... but by then the Call were already becoming strictly a cult item.

"Let the Day Begin," the title track from their sixth album in 1989 -- a year after Been played the apostle John in Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ -- nearly managed to crack the Top 40; it fared better than "The Walls Came Down," even if it remains less known. Yet soon after the original run of the Call came to a close, and an attempt at comeback in 1997, via the disc To Heaven and Back, failed to generate much greater interest.

Longtime followers have been buzzing again about the San Francisco-born, L.A.-reared band Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, insisting since well before the release last week of its fifth dark-and-distorted disc, Beat the Devil's Tattoo, that the group has reconnected with the noisy seduction of its earliest efforts.

Die-hards don't lie -- downplaying the rootsiness of 2005's Howl while re-upping the fuzz factor that made the black-clad outfit such a sensation at the start of last decade (especially in the U.K.), the new set is indeed the strongest and often loudest work the trio has concocted, a stirring revival of the neo-Jesus and Mary Chain joy that made BRMC so appealing in the first place.

The group sounds rejuvenated through and through, even if the disc starts to drag as it nears the hour mark. Allowing for the title track's bluesier slink -- as well as another slice of acoustic intimacy, this time rightly dubbed "Sweet Feeling," a gem that is nonetheless not quite as haunting as, say, "And I'm Aching" (from 2003's Take Them On, On Your Own) -- the twin attack of Robert Levon Been (bass) and Peter Hayes (guitar, pictured) simply bears down hard on those stacks o' amps, blasting out one monster riff after another (the all-out attack of "Bad Blood" dovetailing into the blunted groove of "War Machine" leaps out fast). (Grade: B+)

The band, having finally replaced fired drummer Nick Jago with Leah Shapiro (late of Dead Combo and, on tour, the Raveonettes), has already started gearing up for a nationwide tour with several shows throughout Southern California, chiefly shows last week at the Echoplex with the Whigs in tow. Now comes arguably the best showcase of all: a stop Tuesday at House of Blues Anaheim (1530 S. Disneyland Drive), bolstered by a fairly rare visit from the excellent English band the Veils, still touting kudos for its third album, Sun Gangs.

I hate when this happens: a big, seemingly one-of-a-kind show gets announced for L.A. one week -- and the next an O.C. date is added.

So here we go again: Given pre-sale demand for his June 15 appearance at the Hollywood Bowl, Sting, who just last week revealed plans to reinterpret his songbook and tour with the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra (conducted by Steven Mercurio), has announced two more SoCal stops to frame that ballyhooed performance.

The Police chief and his sprawling support also play June 13 at Cricket Wireless Amphitheatre in Chula Vista and June 16 at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine. Pre-sales for American Express card-holders and fan-club members run Wednesday through March 12. Both shows go on sale to the general public on March 15. Prices: $32.35-$157.35 for Cricket, $30.50-$201 for Verizon.

Also new to his itinerary: a June 18 gig at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, $51-$201, also on sale March 15. Tickets for Sting's Bowl show, meanwhile, are on sale to all starting Monday at 10 a.m., $56-$257.50.

Lady Antebellum, the popular country trio who just last week were named Tim McGraw's next tour opener (June 4 at Cricket, June 5 at San Manuel Amphitheatre in Devore), will first play their own headlining show April 15 at the Wiltern, no doubt spotlighting tracks from its just-released second album, Need You Now. Tickets, $39.50, are on sale Saturday at 10 a.m. via LiveNation.com.

Two weeks ago critically acclaimed singer-songwriter Patty Griffin issued Downtown Church, her first album in three years, a collection of gospel-infused tunes recorded at the same-named Presbyterian house of worship in Nashville.

Now the 45-year-old Americana torchbearer (right) has announced one of her biggest SoCal performances, April 10 at the Wiltern. Buddy Miller, who produced Griffin's new album and has a noteworthy discography himself (with and without wife Julie), will open ... and presumably join in during Patty's set. Tickets go on sale Saturday at 10 a.m. exclusively at LiveNation.com.

Also at the Wiltern and on sale via that site: Tears for Fears, who will support a reunited Spandau Ballet on a Down Under tour in April, will play the venue March 21, with Wainwright (just Wainwright, not Rufus or Martha or Loudon) opening ... and that previously mentioned gig from the National, May 21. Both of those go on sale Friday at 10 a.m.

We already knew that Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (BRMC to you and me) would play three shows (March 11-12 and 14) at the Echoplex in L.A., not long after releasing its fifth album, Beat the Devil's Tattoo, on March 8. Now the group has added a March 16 stop at House of Blues Anaheim, in addition to a March 13 show at House of Blues San Diego. Tickets are $17.50-$40.

We start this week with things we already know but are now going on sale -- chiefly, U2 at Angel Stadium on June 6.

That 360° Tour second-leg stop, the band's first stadium appearance in Orange County (wrong: Zoo TV played there in '92), was announced the day after last month's massive Rose Bowl show, the love-it-or-loathe-it response to which suggests not all U2 fans are so thrilled that Bono & Co. have returned to playing enormous spaces.

Regardless, tickets go on sale Monday, Nov. 9, at 10 a.m. There will be an opening act, to be named later.